Is Dorking, Surrey a nice place to live?

Is Dorking a nice place to live or is Dorking rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Dorking is on the up an up, it's time for a bit of reality. Cold hard statistics culled from the Police, the Indices of Deprivation and the latest census. Is Dorking truly a nice place to live, or are Gomshall, Great Brookham and Leatherhead a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Dorking?

Using the latest Police street crime figures (typically from 3 months ago) we have compiled a table of the most voilent Policing areas in and around Dorking. Naturally the more urban and more central areas will have a higher rate of crime, but often you can be surprised when that is not the case and that is the area you want to move to.
Policing Area Voilent Crimes
Dorking 35
Tower Hill 33
Pixham 25
Stonebridge 20
Box Hill 4
Brockham 4
Bushbury 3
Ranmore Common 2
Fredley 2
Logmore Green 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Dorking. These statistics are published by the government every 2-3 years. They are a measure of how likely you are to be a victim of personal or material crime in an area, such as muggings or burglary. We've taken the rank average for wards in and around Dorking and compared them. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst.

You least likely to be a victim of crime in the Box Hill and Headley ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Box Hill and Headley (Best) 27691/32845
Mickleham, Westhumble and Pixham 23496/32845
Bookham South 22834/32845
Leatherhead South 22318/32845
Dorking North 22027/32845
Dorking South 20204/32845
Westcott 20165/32845
Beare Green 19128/32845
Holmwoods 17110/32845
Leith Hill (Worst) 16315/32845
Reader Opinion:

Weybridge: a quaint commuter belt town, ruined!

Your Health in Dorking

If you are thinking of moving to Dorking, you want to know if the place is likely to put you on a downward spiral of ill health. We've taken the healh question from the latest census to find out and how Dorking compares to its neighbouring local authorities. People were asked to rate their current health from very bad to very good;

Town Very Bad Bad
Reigate and Banstead 0.85% 2.79%
Elmbridge 0.66% 2.46%
Mole Valley (Dorking) 0.71% 2.85%
Epsom and Ewell 0.71% 2.68%

The English Indices of Deprivation also has health statistics for Dorking. They measures the risk of premature death and the impairment of quality of life through poor physical or mental health, lovely! We've collated an average rank for all the Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA) in each ward in and around Dorking. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst;

Ward Average rank in England
Leith Hill (Best) 31690/32845
Mickleham, Westhumble and Pixham 30704/32845
Westcott 28977/32845
Leatherhead South 27183/32845
Bookham South 26330/32845
Dorking South 25790/32845
Box Hill and Headley 24811/32845
Holmwoods 23886/32845
Dorking North 23505/32845
Beare Green (Worst) 18415/32845
Reader Opinion:

Woking: good train links to London apart from that it's a sh*thole

Deprivation in Dorking

Using the English Indices of Deprivation statistics, we've collated the average Index of Multiple Deprivation rank of all the LSOAs in the wards in and around Dorking. In layman's terms, this is how rough the ward is based on mutiple measures of deprivation including; employment, income, health, crime, housing and outside space.

Ward Average rank in England
Dorking South (Best) 27952/32845
Westcott 27849/32845
Dorking North 27819/32845
Bookham South 27209/32845
Leatherhead South 27120/32845
Mickleham, Westhumble and Pixham 23973/32845
Holmwoods 19707/32845
Beare Green 18873/32845
Box Hill and Headley 16492/32845
Leith Hill (Worst) 14977/32845

Average rent in Dorking

Every six months the Office for National statitics publishes a snapshot of rental costs. These statistics for Dorking are dated September 2021. They are split into three figures, the lower quartile, mean and upper quartile. If you recieve housing benefit or the housing benefit section of Universal Credit, the lower quartile is at the top limit of what would be affordable. The mean is the average you'd expect to pay for a rental property and the upper quartile is the average rental cost of the most expensive 25% of properties in Dorking.

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Dorking

If you are thinking of moving to Dorking, you'll want to know how much you can earn in a job in the town. The government publish regular statistics on gross weekly pay and pay per hour.

How grim is your Postcode?